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wolsey

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Posts posted by wolsey

  1. Lemare's organ arrangement was photocopied and sold by Oecumuse who, of course, no longer exist. Fagus Music "has now assumed responsibility for some of the significant material formerly published by Oecumuse" but the Elgar is not shown on their website. You'll have to contact them, therefore, to see if they hold it. Be warned: the outer D major sections are not for faint-hearted organists.

  2. I don't therefore understand why the ISM would quote copyright law in a situation in which a contract is to be formed, when the premise of a contract is that the parties are (within certain, very very broad, limits) free to agree whatever terms they like. It seems more like a trade union bargaining position than anything else.

    Surely the ISM is merely - and quite rightly - pointing out performers' rights which fall under current copyright law. If two parties wish to form a contract under different terms, then that, also, is their right; the ISM is not dictating otherwise.

  3. I can't help thinking that if the ISM represented tube drivers, they would expect them to be paid according to the number of passengers on the train.
    The organisation would expect nothing of the sort.
    Surely one "equitable" all-in fee for the job is the more sensible approach rather than this quaint belief that you somehow "own" a performance and have to be rewarded in dribs and drabs whenever it is used, with all the costly overheads and bureaucracy that entails?
    The ISM advises prospective couples: "If you plan to make a video or audio recording of your wedding, you must consult your musicians in advance. It is illegal to make a recording of a performance for possible exploitation, and even giving copies of your recording to friends and relatives may infringe the performers’ rights. You must also have the consent of your church.

    Seeking the consent of performers is simple. The ISM contract for music at special services includes a clause which states whether or not a recording is to be made. If a recording is made, the musicians' fees are increased by 50% for a sound recording and by 100% for a video recording."

  4. I am indeed ignoring performance rights because I do not think they are relevant in the case of weddings and funerals.

    The ISM advises that performers’ rights can now be summarised in four categories:

     

    1. the right to give consent to the recording, live broadcast, or transmission of a performance, or the use of a recording (these are known as 'non-property rights')

    2. the right to authorise reproduction, distribution and rental of a recorded performance (these are known as 'property rights')

    3. the right to 'equitable remuneration' for the playing in public or broadcast of commercially produced sound recordings

    4. moral rights

     

    You have every right to think that performance rights are not relevant in the case of weddings and funerals, but the rights can exist if these acts of public worship fell into one of the categories above.

  5. Our choir are doing this at the moment. I don't suppose there are any versions specifically for organ accompaniment? Failing this, any advice? I'm currently grappling with a Novello edition...

    Malcolm Archer's version (on 3 staves) is published as an RSCM Classics edition. If you have the time and the inclination, getting a recording of Brahms' Requiem and listening to the movement in its original choral/orchestral form and annotating your Novello copy is very educative. I certainly found it so, and tend to do this if faced with a transcription.

  6. There is an orchestrated recording so I'm told - never heard it, but it was on the old defunct conifer label I think.

    I have a version newly-orchestrated by Barry Rose on the Lammas label (2003).

    Also, didnt Stanley Vann record it too?

    Yes - this is the Peterborough Cathedral recording mentioned by 'Heckelphone' which is playing in the background as I write this: a testament to the skill of the late Stanley Vann. I also have the re-mastered St John's/Guest recording. It is performed in my establishment on Good Friday evening, an occasion which is always well-attended.

  7. Nothing in the Daily Telegraph either. A great shame. A fine man with whom I had the pleasure of adjudicating in past years.

    I did write to the Daily Telegraph and The Times about the lack of coverage, and have received the following reply from the Telegraph:

     

    "Thank you for your note regarding the lack of coverage afforded to Stanley Vann's 100th birthday celebrations.

    If we were notified of this milestone then we would have happily looked into it. However, this was something we were unaware of."

     

    The moral of the story then is that we should not be reticent ourselves about approaching the press in advance of similar notable events.

  8. Where are the boys who sing with the flexibilty, sensitive phrasing and beautiful tone of the choirs of Thalben-Ball, George Guest, Christopher Robinson and Barry Rose (especially at St Alban's), for example? George Malcolm's boys at Westminster Cathedral certainly used a more continental tone than others at the time, but they were capable of great delicacy - for example their recording of Britten's Missa Brevis.

    Apologies for the digression: to this list should be added the choir of Stanley Vann at Peterborough. It, and Christopher Robinson's at Worcester, were more than equal to King's (and John's) in the 1960s.

  9. John Birch was born in 1929, and together with the late Allan Wicks, Arthur Wills, Noel Rawsthorne, et al born in the 1920s, is arguably in the second row of 'elder statesmen' organists. The members of the 'old fraternity' mentioned earlier in the thread were all born in the first two decades of the last century.

  10. Is Richard Seal of their generation, or a bit younger? Whichever, he also has/had some rather special qualities as a choir trainer, mentor, conductor etc.....

     

    Richard Seal was 74 last December.

     

    The others of this generation are Ernest 'John' Warrell, and - of course - Sir David Willcocks.

  11. I understand the acoustic is a lot more favourable than it was. I sincerely hope that we don't go down the road of "revoicing", or of making it more "polite". It's essentially French character and very forward thinking in 1951 frankly left a lot of others in the shadows. The acoustic never flattered it, and I often thought how much more magnificent it would be bathed in even a couple of seconds more reverb.

     

    A valid point, discussed earlier in the thread here. I am sure that David Hirst (Mark Venning's successor) will be no less fastidious.

  12. The swell reed in question is probably the Oboe rather than a more powerful stop.

    It has to be; anything else would obliterate the solo treble in the opening bars - even with the box tight shut. To play the chordal accompaniment on a more powerful reed would also *sound* inappropriate.

  13. For all its historic interest and musical worth the Grove remains a large, ugly and expensive red herring of little or no liturgical or concert use.

    Expensive? Red herring? How so?

    Having heard John Pryer improvise a concluding voluntary on this organ at many of the Abbey's legendary Advent Carol Services, and having played it myself, I remember reeling at the utter thrill of its tone, as well as its power - despite being tucked away in the north transept.

     

    Of no concert use? I would readily travel from London to hear a solo recital on this instrument given by people whose playing I enjoy.

  14. I was not happy with the review, and am posting below (slightly edited) what I wrote on the BBCR3 CD Review message board.

     

    "As we begin the second decade of the twenty-first century, and with our ability to purchase recordings on sale both here and overseas - and even download them - at the click of a mouse, might it not be time for a re-assessment of the criterion ‘available recording’? I too was wondering about the absence of Peter Hurford’s 1984 recording from the assessment, and yet I have just ordered the two-disc compilation set ‘Romantic Organ Works’ (released in 2000) - which contains the three Chorals - on Amazon. The 1984 recording, incidentally, while not available as a CD, is available for download. Hurford is eighty this coming November; I hope the BBC will mark this in some way.

     

    "Passing reference was made by a previous poster to Wolfgang Rübsam, and I clearly remember hearing the E major Choral from his Franck recording on Record/CD Review soon after it was released by Bayer Records in 1990 - and it can still be purchased on-line from them, yet it wasn’t featured in the review.

     

    "Another recording, by Michael Murray on the Saint Sernin, Toulouse organ (Telarc) is available from Amazon, yet again, does not appear to have been considered. One personal regret is that Gillian Weir’s 1984 BBC Radio 3 series on the organ works of Franck (using, again, the Saint Sernin organ) was never issued on CD."

  15. The Alan Gray descant to While Shepherds watched is in the Anglican Hymn Book.

    It appears in the New English Hymnal as well. Willcocks' descant for O come, all ye faithful and Armstrong's for O little town of Bethlehem are also included.

  16. I definitely don't want to get into a discussion about the worship style in St Peter's but do wonder about the HNB organ. Is there a place for it any more? Does anyone know anything?

    Apologies for splitting hairs, but to me and many others it is a Father Willis organ - albeit rebuilt by HNB in 1956 and 1983.

     

    On another point, en route to St Stephen's Gloucester Road (west London) last Thursday evening I went past St Jude's Courtfield Gardens and noted that services are now held in St Mary-le-Boltons in Kensington. Does anyone know what's happening to St Jude's building and organ? They used to have a good, low church, musical tradition and Stephen Ridgely-Whitehouse was there for a while.

     

    Malcolm

    On the occasion that I played for a Sunday service at St Jude's many years ago, the liturgy was far from 'low church'.

  17. From the time of its installation until the Mander restoration of 1991, the 'Father' Wills Tuba at Truro Cathedral was buried in the instrument (I thought it was hard against the east wall of the chamber?) and was universally regarded as disappointing. Not now!

  18. From The Code of Fair Practice on the graphic copying of music:

     

    The copyright owners [snip] have agreed that they will not institute proceedings if copies are made in the following circumstances in respect of music both printed and published in the UK, notwithstanding the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

     

    Whenever such a copy is made it must bear on the first page of the music the copyright line (eg © Copyright 1992 by XYZ Music Co Ltd, London) which appears at the beginning of the work. This information should be written by hand where necessary on the original from which the copy is made.

     

    1. [snip]

     

    2. Performance Difficulties: A performer who possesses a piece of music and who needs for his personal use a second copy of a page of the work for ease of performance due to a difficult page-turn, may make one copy of the relevant part for that purpose without any application to the copyright owner. Copying whole movements or whole works is expressly forbidden under this section. When such a work has been hired, the copy made must be returned with the other hire material after the performance.

  19. So the delay is OK on this system is it? I wouldn't want to be any further behind the beat than I'm told I already am ...

    It would be difficult to blame any perceived shortcomings in ensemble on the CCTV. :P

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